it's an ache i still remember
by tints
Summary: i'm not being a brat. or the one where klaus is. rebekah confronts niklaus over her daggering. set between 3x13/3x14. missing scene.


**disclaimer:** none of these characters are mine.

inspired by the prompt _and where I go, you'll be there with me; forever you'll be right here with me_. this is set between 3x13/3x14 as a missing scene and some closure I needed for this particular arc. title from goyte's _somebody i used to know_.

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**it's an ache i still remember  
**

**—**

Rebekah is restless. Her hands itch to snap a spine, to hear the bones break beneath her delicate fingers. She's unable to, though, as she requires supervision these days to do anything. She's surprised Niklaus or Elijah aren't monitoring her breathing under mother's request.

She finds him in one of his many rooms, him sitting on a couch by himself. It's an image she's adjusting to, seeing Niklaus by himself. She's so used to seeing him in a room full of people, the centre of attention or the puppeteer of a grand feast. It's one of the many reasons why she misses the 1920s; she never saw him morph into this man who appreciated loneliness over companionship that wasn't merely forced by the snapping of a wolf's neck. Or a man who seeks the company of a lead pencil and pad of paper. He spends more time inside his own mind than he does conversing with her.

"Why don't you ever show me what you're drawing?" she says, lingering by the door frame. She leans against it, bored. Nik doesn't bother sparing her a glance. She slithers over towards the couch he's occupying, intent on seeing what's gotten him so entranced from behind his back. It's a tactic Kol uses, though his hands are usually behind his back, his footsteps counting to a beat that she cannot hear. He flips the page when he hears her footsteps approach. She pouts, "Why are you no fun?"

He doesn't spare her a look, doesn't even acknowledge her with a glance that lasts a second. She's no longer the centre of his world and it stumps her, causing her to pause on the spot. His eyes remain focused on the pad of paper in front of him and the lead pencil that's staining the flesh of his fingers. "You're being a brat, 'Bekah."

"I'm not being a brat," she says it automatically. "How many times do I have to say it, Nik?" Rebekah sighs, one of her feet landing harder on the floor as she backs away to circle around the couch. Talking to the back of Nik's head doesn't get her far; it's as dense as it is at the front. "Just because I wish to see what occupies your interests doesn't mean I'm a brat."

"But stomping your foot does," he smirks.

Her back straightens. "Kol stomps his foot," she says, crossing her arms against her chest.

"He's not a brat," Klaus replies, not even looking up from his pad of paper. He's drawing something new, his pencil making a large arch towards the top of the paper. She thinks of standing on the tips of her toes but resists the childish urge. "He's merely a nuisance."

"Is that why you daggered him?" she finds herself asking. Rebekah stays clear of daggers in more ways than one. She takes a step closer towards the couch, but stops. Distance exists between her and Niklaus, a space that wasn't there decades ago. She doesn't know how to move around it without barging through it; the one action she wants to avoid is upsetting the sensitive balance that's been established between them. She can co-exist with him if the notion of daggers or the black hole in her memory spanning from the 1920s to the 2010s is ignored. "Was he too much of a nuisance for you?"

Tonight's one that wishes to knock the wall down and begin building a bridge that's sturdier, more adept to handling the modern times and the rocks that are constantly thrown in their way. She feels her entire body is alight for the first time in years - tiptoeing a line she knows she shouldn't cross is exhilarating, yet something she fears so desperately. She's never had a chance to live or experience the push and pull of such a line.

Niklaus doesn't look up, but his pencil stops it's shading. She can't see what he's drawing, but she knows it's something from a world she'll never be apart of. This is a side of Nik that he never lets her see; what he places onto paper belongs to a boy with long hair and uncertainty in his steps. The man before her walks with powerful strides, something akin to the way the pencil moves across the paper, and has more ghosts lingering in his shadow. Sometimes she thinks she cannot see him for who he truly is anymore.

It feels like a million heartbeats pass, or eight decades, before she presses, "Answer me."

"Kol does not understand," he says, slowly, balancing every word. She knows what he means, _always and forever_, but when she looks back, Kol never had a chance. Their hands were linked long before an invitation could be extended to their brother, and even when it was, he was long gone. How far had she pushed her older brother away before she realised he was someone she could no longer recognise? All his words, sharp and harsh and very callous, are ways he keeps a bridge between them; it's been in existence for centuries. "Always and forever, Rebekah. Don't you forget that."

"I'm not the one who has," she says, and she remains standing. For once, she has the power. At least, she feels like she does. Niklaus does not tower over her physically while he remains in the corner of the couch. She's the master of the conversation, the puppeteer that gets to pull his strings for once. "Kol is our brother. Elijah is your brother. Yet you daggered them as if they were wolves."

"They were strangers to me," he says. She notices the slip, recoiling a little, as his eyes harden in response. She wonders if things have changed, or if they are merely no longer blips on his radar. "They don't understand."

She understands, though. What he's saying is something she's known long before they became monsters. "Mikael loved none of us."

"He loved _his_ children."

"Yet he hunted them like wolves," she says, neck arched high. His eyes are like white oak stakes, but her back is straight and her posture is stiff. For a man proud of his own blood, Mikael betrayed them more than Niklaus ever could. Sometimes she wonders if he truly is Mikael's son. "Kol and Elijah did nothing to you."

"What is it that you're asking, Rebekah?" Niklaus seems to shift on the couch, as if getting comfortable, as he challenges her, arms drawing closer to his torso. The pencil in his grip falls onto the pad of paper and seems to roll off the page. "You've never held your tongue with me."

"But you have with me," she says, her voice sounding desperate. It almost croaks, like it's some vulnerability, but Rebekah doesn't have any that aren't in the form of a white oak stake. She's hard and she's dangerous; she's a vessel that's hollow and cannot be punctured. "Things are different, Nik. You're different."

He sighs. "Centuries alone will do that to you."

"You did it to yourself," she says, quietly, hissing it. "I stayed by your side for years. I have loved you for so long. And yet, you still stabbed me in the back."

Niklaus at least looks away. She thinks about wiping at her eyes, feeling the moisture there, but she keeps her hands locked against her own torso, mirroring him without realising it.

"Always and forever?" she raises her eyebrows, challenging. He doesn't see it. He doesn't see her anymore. "It's not something that's simply temporary, Nik."

He's silent. She thinks of moving, and goes to turn around to leave the room before she rips the pad of paper from his lap and lodges it into his chest cavity, when he says, "It's one of my greatest regrets, 'Bekah. Daggering you -" he pauses for so long she thinks he's forgotten what he's going to say, or doesn't have the spine for it. The boy she once knew didn't have the spine for much but loyalty and love; the man before her doesn't know the meaning of either word. He still cowers the same, though. "You were my only friend."

"I'm still your friend," she says, stopping herself from turning around to violently shake him. "And I'll always be. You're my brother." She pauses, her voice hardening as she continues, "But if I find myself back in that coffin, you'll lose me forever, Nik." It's not an empty threat, either. Both of them know he came close to it; he's lost Elijah, if only temporarily, and Kol's a lost soul that can't trust anything he can swing a bat at, but Rebekah's loyalty to Niklaus has always been one of her many faults. She came close to abandoning him for the sake of a face she absolutely loathes and the truth that's only merely twisted by the lips of a doppelganger. She does turn around to say, "I've lost too much as it is."

She turns away. It's the first and last time he'll ever see her back.


End file.
